


Never Say Never

by aflyawaykindaday



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Female Character of Color, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 15:07:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2472626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflyawaykindaday/pseuds/aflyawaykindaday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because really, what’s a soldier without her two specialists? What’s an upstanding citizen without his two troublemakers? And what’s a turian vigilante without his two accomplices?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Say Never

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The product of weeks of unexpected feels.
> 
> Warning(s): Fluff and a wee bit of profanity.

Humans are bizarre. If there’s anything Garrus has learned from working with them, living with them,  _loving_  with them, it’s that.

Shepard and Alenko? They’re even more so.

Shepard is a mess of contradictions. She’s small (to him, anyway), a compact body with thin arms and short legs and fragile skin. But every inch of her is bundled with a wealth of hard-earned muscle and scar tissue, the gentle features of her face home to a sturdy jaw and a proud nose and a piercing pair of sable eyes. Her mouth, full and soft as it is, issues orders (and oaths) in a way that reminds him of his drill instructor, loud and sharp and unyielding. Which is ironic, he thinks, because he knows on a personal level that she doubts herself more than most, tries ridiculously hard to be everything she believes the galaxy needs.

She’s chaos, if he’s to be honest. And if Shepard is chaos, active and unpredictable and a little bit all over the place, then Alenko is stability, as solid and soothing and reliable as he’s always tried to be.

He’s more obvious, more clear-cut in his attributes. Russet skin wrapped around firm musculature, a confident, encouraging face housing a brilliant, damn near VI-efficient mind, and a heart possessing a greater sense of justice than he’s ever known. On the battlefield, the warm gold of his eyes and skin glow blue with his biotics, a beacon of a warning to the enemy. And menacing as it may very well be, Garrus finds the color itself oddly assuring; he knows that, in the heat of danger, that blue is a sign of security, a cool eye in a storm of bullets and fire.

Between the two of them, Shepard and Alenko are a force to be prized. They work around each other in harmony, like opposites in sustained balance, seamlessly fortifying their weaknesses and augmenting their strengths. They’re like the Normandy’s Thanix cannon, Garrus likes to think: perfectly calibrated pieces operating together as one, after a hell of a lot of effort.

He never thought he would be able to add to that, never  _pictured_  himself adding to it, not any more than he already had. He had been – and still  _was_  – the best friend, the buddy, the ofttimes-confidant, as they were to him. A strong connection, one that would probably span their lifetimes, as deep as the Spirit of the Normandy, as resonant in him as his pride as a member of its crew.

He never thought there’d be something else, another element to add to the comfortable, _familiar_  bond that was Shepard, Alenko, and Vakarian. And yet…

He opens his eyes to a dark, light-flickered ceiling, finds himself lying between two soft human bodies. Alenko’s head is nestled into his neck, his breath puffing warm against the thin skin of his throat. He’s still awake, though just barely, his eyes trained on the glow of the almost-muted vid screen. Shepard, on the other hand, is out cold, her head buried in his chest, her short limbs stretched to their limit over his body where they meet with Alenko’s, her feet on his thigh and their hands clasped, fingers interlaced. His own arms are wrapped around the both of them, one set of talons gently scratching at Alenko’s back while the other plays with the curly puffs of Shepard’s hair. He lets out a lazy sigh, leans his forehead against hers, and listens to the soft snuffles issuing from her nose. Alenko shifts with him, huffing the quietest of laughs.

“And she says she doesn’t snore.” Garrus chuckles.

“Should we turn her over?”

“She’ll just turn back. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“Damn.” Garrus looks over, catches Alenko’s eye in the shadows of the room. For the briefest second the man’s gaze flashes blue, the light of the vid screen reflecting in his irises, and it reminds Garrus of his biotics. “I’ve got a good bit to learn.”

“You’ll be fine.” Alenko buries his face in Garrus’ neck again, stubble gently rasping against his mandibles. In the same moment, Shepard burrows further into his chest and subconsciously tightens her hold on Alenko’s fingers. Kaidan smirks. “More than fine. You’ll see.”

With a rumble of amusement (because Alenko can be  _so_  sentimental sometimes), Garrus blindly gropes for the vid screen remote, forgoes using voice command to avoid unnecessary noise. With a flick of bright concentrated light, the room is plunged into darkness, and Alenko grabs the blankets, pulls and arranges until they rest securely over the three of them, the soft rasp of his voice whispering a goodnight. A few quiet moments later, his gentle breaths join the rhythm of Shepard’s snores, a strange synchronization sounding in either of Garrus’ ears, wrapping him in warmth.

Yeah, humans are bizarre. Shepard and Alenko even more so.

But that doesn’t stop them from also being pretty damn amazing. With each other, with him, with  _them_ , together, wrapped in each other’s lives so completely they can’t quite imagine one without the other two or two without the remaining one.

And it makes sense. Because really, what’s a soldier without her two specialists? What’s an upstanding citizen without his two troublemakers? And what the  _hell’s_  a turian vigilante without his two accomplices?

Garrus doesn’t know. And wrapped up in all this warmth, in all this bizarre human softness, he really doesn’t care to find out.


End file.
